


Floating Down the Drain

by skeletondust



Series: A Party of Losers [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No IT (King), Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Crossover, IT crossover, Richie Tozier and Mike Wheeler Are Twins, Stranger Things Crossover, Twin AU, Twins, not that noting that matters this is set before that would even happen, richie and mike twin au, twins au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 11:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletondust/pseuds/skeletondust
Summary: Monday, October 11th, 1982. Georgie Denbrough is missing and Richie Wheeler doesn't know how to deal with it.





	Floating Down the Drain

Monday, October 11th, 1982

“Okay, I’m sick of this. Why the hell are you being so quiet?”

Richie tore his eyes off of the popcorn design of the bedroom ceiling, rolling onto his side so he could look down from the top bunk of their bunk beds at his twin brother. Mike sat at their shared desk, finishing up some homework that Richie had finished hours ago in an attempt to keep himself distracted.

“I dunno, Frogface, maybe I just don’t feel like listening to you whine about how obnoxious I am,” he said, with much more bite than he had intended. He flopped back onto his back, returning his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t need to see the look on Mike’s face, he knew it well enough.

“Stop calling me ‘Frogface’, you’re just insulting yourself. We’re identical, remember?” That was true- the only real differences in their appearance, besides the difference in clothes, were the big glasses Richie had to keep on his face at all times and the fact that Mike made every attempt to comb the curls out of his hair. Other than that, they looked exactly the same. That wasn’t going to stop Richie from picking on him, though.

He heard the desk chair push back on the carpet and bed springs creak from below. Mike laid his arms on the mattress and his head on his hands.

“Seriously, what’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird  _ all  _ weekend. Even during history today, you were all quiet. You usually have your hand up for  _ every  _ questions.” Mike poked him in the leg. He kicked his foot but didn’t do much to ward him off. “Come on, Richie, you’re weirding me out.”

Richie poked him in the face with his foot. “You’re the one weirding me out, weirdo. Since when did you care so much about me so much?”

He shrugged. “I guess I’m just used to you being annoying all the time. Don’t know how to deal with the quiet anymore.”

Richie shoved his foot in Mike’s face, succeeding in knocking him onto his butt on the bunk below. He rolled over so he was facing the wall. “Is that annoying enough for you?”

“No. You’re not being enough of a trashmouth.” Mike popped back up, patting his brother on the leg. “I know something’s wrong. What is it?”

He kicked again, but missed. “You know exactly what’s wrong.”

The entire  _ town  _ knew what was wrong. George Denbrough, the seven-year-old son of Zack and Sharon Denbrough and the younger brother of Richie’s friend Bill, had gone missing two days ago. Georgie had gone outside to play in the rain with a paper boat Bill had made him, and he hadn’t come home. The only ‘evidence’ they had of what had happened to Georgie was a neighbor’s claim that she had seen blood near the sewer drain, but whether or not she had actually seen what she claimed to have seen was impossible to know, as the rain had swept away everything there could have been, including the paper boat.

It was all over the news. Nothing like this ever happened in Hawkins. Georgie’s face featured on every local news station, the front page of every newspaper, and on countless ‘missing’ posters that already covered the entire town. Hundreds of people went out to help search for him, but they had yet to find anything.

Richie didn’t know how to deal with it all and he wasn’t even the one with the missing brother. All of his friends were being just as awkward and quiet as he was, and Bill hadn’t even shown up to school that day. He just wanted to cheer everyone up, but when he had tried his stupid jokes had just gotten him glares and a barrage of ‘beep beep, Richie’s, so he had given up by lunch time, when in any other situation he would have persisted for much, much longer. He wasn’t getting much sympathy from home, either. His father was always distant and his mother was always busy, then there was no way Mike could understand, Holly was only two, and Nancy was an obnoxious teenage girl. None of them seemed to understand that Georgie was as much like a brother to him as all his other friends were (even Beverly), though it wasn’t like they ever asked him about his friends all that often, so how would they even know? His only consolation so far was their mother telling Nancy to stay off the phone for the evening, just in case one of Richie’s friends or one of their parents’ called with news.

He was only eleven. He didn’t know what to do. He had been spending all of his time since he had gotten home from school trying to keep himself distracted so that he didn’t get too anxious and didn’t think about it too much and didn’t call any of his friends and just annoy them further, and especially so he wouldn’t let his impulsivity get the better of him and make the stupid decision to call Bill. Mike asking him what was wrong over and over was making it hard to not think about it.

“Yeah,” Mike said softly. “Hey, uh… how’s Bill?

Richie huffed. Why did Mike care so much? It’s not like he liked any of Richie’s friends, or Richie for that matter. “I don’t know. He didn’t go to school today and mom said to keep their line clear so the police can call.”

Mike must have made his ‘what’s your problem?’ face, as he replied, “You don’t need to sound so angry, I’m just wondering.”

Richie sat up in a flash, causing Mike is flinch slightly.. “Maybe I wouldn’t sound so angry if you stopped asking questions!”

“I’m just trying to be nice!”

“Well, you’re not being nice, you’re being an asshole.”

“I’m being an asshole for asking if you and your friend are okay? That doesn’t even make sense!”

Richie sighed and half jumped, half slid off of the top bunk onto the floor. He couldn’t deal with this. It was too much. He had to distract himself. “You’re an asshole ‘cause you won’t leave me alone.”

Mike hopped off of his own bed and stood in front of his twin, blocking the way to the door. He crossed his arms. “You never leave me alone, so why should I leave you alone?”

He balled his hands into fists.  _ Don’t push him, don’t push him _ , he tried to mentally coach himself.  _ Don’t be impulsive _ . “You’re always being such a goody-two-shoes, you wouldn’t want to ruin that reputation by acting like me, would you?”

“I- I mean-” Mike faltered. Richie took the chance to shove past him, making him stumble, and rush out the door and down the stairs. “Hey!”

“I’m going in the basement!” He announced as he passed through the kitchen.

“Okay, sweety,” Karen said from the stove.

He slammed the basement door open and pounded his way down the dusty stairs.

“Careful!” Ted scolded from the living room, though Richie barely heard as he was already downstairs, tossing himself onto the old couch and burying his face, glasses and all, in the cushions.

_ God _ . That was stupid. Everything about the past few days was stupid. None of it made any sense. Why did Georgie have to disappear? Why did Bill have to go through something like that? Why did all the adults around him and the kids at school act like nothing was happening? Why was everyone acting all awkward and weird with him and friends, even the people who were pretending like nothing was happening? Why was Mike acting all concerned while his parents didn’t say anything? Why couldn’t he cheer up his friends even a little bit? Why couldn’t he figure any of this out? He was a loudmouth and a constant distraction to other students, but he was good at school, he should have been able to figure out a solution to  _ some  _ of these problems. Why couldn’t he? Why was he so dumb?

The familiar crackling of Mike’s SuperComm snapped him out of his thoughts

“Mike? Mike, are you there? ...Over.” Lucas’s voice filtered through the machine.

Richie pulled his face off from the cushions. He rubbed his eyes, pushing back any tears that may have been threatening to start slipping, and fixed his skewed glasses. He grabbed the SuperComm off of the nearby table, pulled up the antenna, and pressed the button to answer.

He did his best imitation of his of an answering machine message. “You’ve reached the walkie-talkie of Michael Wheeler. Frogface isn’t available right now, leave a message after the beep.  _ Beep _ !” 

“Ugh. Richie. What do  _ you  _ want?”

Richie chuckled to himself. Lucas hadn’t even tried to keep the distaste out of his voice. Neither of them liked each other, but at least Lucas could be trusted to act normally with him no matter the situation. “What do  _ I _ want? I want a pack of mentos and a bottle of coke so I can see if mixing those to make an explosion still works in a person’s mouth. Why, are you going to the convenience store or something?”

“You know what I meant!” The sound of Lucas’s frustration was music to Richie’s ears- and relief, as he barely realized that he was distracted from his previous whirl of thoughts. “Where’s Mike?”

“Like I said, not available right now.”

“ _ Where  _ is he?”

Richie rolled his eyes, even though Lucas couldn’t see it. “Upstairs. Doing homework. Possibly crying because I pushed him.”

“Why the hell did you push him!?” Richie laughed for the moment the SuperComm was silent. It felt like a weight was starting to lift off his chest. “Ya know what? Nevermind. Just bring the SuperComm up to him, I have something to ask him about our science homework.”

“Hmm, I don’t think I can do that, Lucas. I mean, what’s in it for me?” He stifled a giggle. “I won’t get to terrorize you if I do that.”

“You’re such a jerk, Richie.”

“So? What do I get for helping you?”

He could practically  _ feel  _ Lucas’s irritation through the SuperComm. “Okay. Just remember that I’m only offering you anything because I  _ really  _ need Mike’s help on this question, alright? I’m never doing this again, ever.”

Richie put on his best British accent, which was self-admittedly terrible, but the accents always seemed to annoy people more than anything else. “Of course, my good fellow! Now, pip-pip, tally-ho, we haven’t got all day!”

He imagined Lucas groaning in annoyance. “I’ll bring you a butterfinger at lunch tomorrow.”

“Deal!” Richie shouted into the SuperComm and bolted up the stairs. He slammed the basement door open again, ignored his father’s apathetically angry ‘careful!’, and stopped at the bottom of the other set of stairs.

“Hey, Mike!” He yelled. “One of your dumb friends is on your walkie-talkie! MIKE!”

“Richie, quiet down!” Karen warned from the kitchen.

Nancy came out of her room and stood at the top of the stairs. “Would you be quiet? I’m trying to read.” There was less irritation in her voice than usual.

Richie waved the SuperComm at her. “Dork number two wants to talk to dork number one.”

Normally, Nancy would have argued with him for a moment, telling him to stop being lazy and just to walk up the stairs and tell Mike himself. Instead, she pursed her lips and went over to the bedroom door, knocking with a quick wrap of her knuckles. Richie bit his tongue and tried to ignore it.

Mike opened the door. “What?”

Nancy just gestured down the stairs.

Richie waved the SuperComm again, just as Lucas’s voice crackled through, saying, “Hello? Richie? Mike?”

Mike bounded down the stairs, grabbed the walkie-talkie, and marched back up without even a ‘thanks’. Of course he was mad, he was always mad at Richie for one thing or another. That was no surprise. But usually he tried to make some dumb remark that was no match for his brother’s trashmouth.

“You’re welcome, Mikey!”

No response telling him not to call him ‘Mikey’. Richie bit his tongue again. He tried not to start thinking about how awkward everyone was being. He’d had enough of thinking about all of that. No point in worrying about something you can’t do anything about, right? He wasn’t really sure about that but it was all he could do at the moment.

He turned to head back to the basement. Time to find something else to do.

“Richie!” Karen called as he passed through the kitchen. “Could you set the table for me, please? Dinner’s almost ready.”

Richie gave a mock salute. “Sir, yes, sir!” He said, trying to imitate a movie soldier.

Karen gave him an amused smile and gestured at one of the cabinets. “Plates and bowls, forks and spoons, water glasses, and the dressing in the fridge. Don’t forget Holly’s plate and fork this time. Oh, and her juice cup.”

He started gathering up everything for the table, determined to get as much as he could into the dining room in one go. His mom hated whenever he did that because he usually ended up dropping something and making a mess, but he did it every time she asked him to set the table, so really she only had herself to blame for any condiments and silverware that ended up on the floor. Karen glanced at him as he stacked the plates, bowls, silverware, and dressing containers on top of each other. Richie glanced back at her, his tongue stuck out in concentration.

“Please don’t add to the cups to that,” she said. No scolding, just a small command masked with a polite word.

“Alright,” he answered. He focused on placing the blue cheese dressing on the edge of the stack of plates.

Dinner was normal. Normal enough for Richie to ignore any weird behavior from his family, at least. Nancy and Mike bickered a little, Mike ignored his brother, Holly tried to eat her food with her hands and had her fork given back to her again and again, Karen asked everyone about their day, Ted only piped in occasionally, and Richie tried not to make the table shake while he bounced his legs with barely contained energy. Usually, he got yelled at to stop and to calm down. He ignored that fact in favor of scarfing down the barbeque steak and mashed potatoes on is plate.

“Richie, slow down, you’re going to make yourself sick,” Karen warned. 

“No I’m not,” he insisted, speaking through a mouth full of food.

“Gross,” Nancy muttered. Richie gave her a grin full of teeth, potatoes, barbeque sauce. “Ew! Stop!”

Karen gave her a sharp look. She frowned and took a bite of her side salad.

Richie stabbed a piece of steak. “Hey mom, aren’t you gonna ask me about my day?” She always asked in descending order of age- Ted, then Nancy, then Mike, then Richie, though he was only younger than his twin by seven minutes. She’d finished talking to Mike about his school day five minutes ago.

“Of course, honey, I was getting to you. How was school?”

It was so obvious that she didn’t want to ask that question. She always tried to keep her emotions to herself, but she wasn’t that good at it. Richie poked at his potatoes. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked.

“It was alright. Not much really happened. Bill wasn’t there.” He quickly shoved a fork full of potatoes into his mouth. “But Mrs. O’Malley was being harda- I mean, she was being tough again. She gave us this stupid pop quiz. I tried to argue, ‘cause we haven’t even finished the chapter it was on yet. I mean, I’ve read ahead, but it wasn’t fair to the other students, right? She just yelled at me and made us take the quiz anyway.”

That story was completely made up. He knew Mike knew that, considering that Mrs. O’Malley was their history teacher and they were in the same class. For the first time that day, he was actually grateful for somebody’s silence.

“Do you think you did well on it?” Karen asked.

“Well, yeah, I ace  _ all  _ my quizzes.”

“Yes, we’re very proud of your grades, son,” Ted said.

“Um, mom?” Nancy said, pulling their mother’s attention to her. “Could I call Barb after dinner?”

“Do you need to ask her something about your homework?”

“Well, no, but-”

Karen shook her head. “Nancy, I already told you, we need to leave the line open in case one of Richie’s friends or one of their parents’ calls with information.”

“But, mom-”

“No ‘buts’. I’ve already explained this to you, I would rather not have to explain it again at the dinner table.”

“No one’s gonna call,” Mike mumbled under his breath.

“Excuse me, young man?” Their mother stared at him with eyes that just screamed ‘say that again, you’ll be in trouble’.

“I said that no one’s gonna call.” He hesitated for a moment, probably reconsidering saying what he was actually thinking. “I mean, no one’s called yet, and it’s late now, so probably no one’s gonna call.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit!” Richie spat out before he could stop himself.

“Richard Wheeler!” Karen warned.

“Language!” Ted scolded.

“That’s so not what you were thinking!” He poked Mike hard on the shoulder. “You were thinking about how you don’t want to listen to Nancy whine about not being able to talk to her friends and you just wanted to convince mom and dad to just let her use the phone, ‘cause you don’t actually care about Bill or Georgie and you don’t care what happened!” He continued to poke Mike accusingly as he spoke.

Mike slapped his hand away. “You’re the one who got all weird when I asked how Bill was!”

“You’ve never cared about Bill before! You don’t care about any of my friends, you hate them! You’re the one being weird!”

“Richie, calm down,” Nancy used her serious-but-gentle voice, the one she only used when she knew her little brother was getting overwhelmed and couldn’t control himself.

He stomped his foot, making the table shake. “You’re  _ all  _ acting weird! You’re treating me all different and acting so much nicer and not yelling at me, it’s annoying! Why can’t you just act normal? Why can’t everything just go back to normal!?”

“Why can’t you stop acting like a freak!?” Mike demanded.

Before anyone could stop him, Richie leaned over the table and grabbed a handful of potatoes right out of the dish. He dropped it onto Mike’s head and rubbed it into his hair.

“Agh! What the hell!”

The table went silent after that. Holly had started crying at some point and Karen was busying herself trying to calm the two-year-old down, occasionally looking over at her son with what almost seemed like concern.

Richie felt Nancy’s hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back into his seat. He hadn’t even realized he had been standing.

“...sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s alright, Rich,” Nancy said.

“No it isn’t!” Mike snapped. “He put potatoes in my hair!”

“Mike, shut up,” she hissed.

“That’s enough,” their father said. He opened his mouth to say more, but Karen put her free hand, the other holding Holly’s juice cup trying to distract her, against Ted’s chest, telling him to stop. He closed his mouth.

“Boys, both of you are out of line.” Her voice was low. Despite their constant bickering and the younger twin’s misbehavior, it wasn’t often they heard their mother get so serious. Richie shrank back in his seat while Mike picked at the end of his shirt. “Michael, once you clean up I want you to go to your room and stay there, either until the morning or until you’re ready to apologize to your brother, whichever comes first. And no using your SuperComm.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Richard, you are going to help me clean up the mess you’ve made and then you’re going to sit in the living room quietly until-”

The phone started ringing. All heads turned towards the noise. Richie shoved his chair back and bolted towards it.

“I’ll get it!”

“Rich-”

He almost accidentally yanked the receiver off of the wall as he grabbed the phone. “Hello? Uh, Wheeler residence.”

“Richie? Is that you or is this Mike?”

Finally! He smiled and jumped in place a little. “Stan-the-man! It’s so great to hear your sweet, sweet voice. What’s up?”

"Um…" Stan took in a shaky breath.

Richie bit down on his tongue for a second. "C'mon, just spit it out. You're not Bill."

"Don't make fun of him!" Stan snapped. "...right now. Don't fun of him right now."

"I… didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry."

Stan sighed. "Yeah, I know you didn't."

"...so what is it? Did they find something out?" 

"So, I don't think I'm supposed to know this, I overheard my parents talking but they were whispering about it."

"Okay."

"Uh… They said that they- the police found Georgie."

Richie's heart skipped a beat. "They did!? Where, when, h-"

Stan sniffled. That shut Richie up immediately.

“Um. I um, didn’t hear everything they said, but- but they said Georgie’s dead.”

His stomach turned to ice. “What?”

“Georgie’s  _ dead _ .” Stan made an odd whimpering sound. “An animal bit off his arm. He doesn’t have an  _ arm _ , Richie.”

The next thing Richie knew he was doubled over retching, the steak and potatoes he had just eaten splattering on his shoes, his lunch following quickly after. He coughed and gagged, his eyes and throat stinging.

His head felt fuzzy. He spit out the last bit of bile in his mouth and wiped his mouth and nose with his sleeve. His mom would hate that when she went to do laundry, oh, she probably wouldn’t be happy with the puke covering the floor, either. She didn’t like messes.

She was already walking over to him, but she didn’t scold. She just kneeled next to him and started rubbing small, comforting circles on his back.

“What happened, sweety?” She asked gently.

The phone was dangling by its chord, swinging slightly back and forth. Stan was saying something on the other end. He grabbed the phone with a shaking hand and put it back up to his ear.

“Sorry. I threw up.”

“I guessed. You always throw up when you get too scared.” Stan stated this plainly, sniffling a bit, not teasing him this once. “I’m sorry I made you throw up. I- I’m gonna call everyone else, they should know too.”

“Yeah. Okay. Um… thanks for… letting me know.”

“Yeah.” He sniffled again. “Bye.”

The line when dead with a click. Richie hung the phone back up.

Karen carefully turned him towards her so that he was looking in her eyes. She brushed his hair out of his face and adjusted his glasses for him. “What happened?” She asked again, even softer than before.

“Stan said… Stan said his parents said that they found Georgie. That Georgie was  _ dead _ . That he doesn’t have an arm. An animal ate it.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

She wrapped him up in a hug and Richie clung to her, burying his face, glasses and all, in her shoulder.  _ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry _ . Everyone had already seen him throw up, he didn’t want to cry in front of them too. They had all already seen him throw up when he was scared before, many times, all of them had even been puked on before, too. But this was different, somehow, this was embarrassing. Why was it embarrassing? Georgie was dead, he was dead, he was missing an arm, he was seven years old, he was dead, and Bill was probably falling apart. What right did he have to cry?

He started sobbing. His mother kept rubbing his back, whispering that it was okay, it was gonna be okay.

Would it?

Hours later, Richie sat curled up against his mother’s side on the couch. It was late, nearly 11 p.m., but he couldn’t sleep and Karen wasn’t pushing him to do anything. Everything had been cleaned up, everyone else had either gone to bed or had just gone to their rooms. The remaining two watched whatever reruns they could find, neither really paying too much attention.

“Hey, how about I make us some hot cocoa? Do you think you’d like that?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay, honey.” She planted a kiss on his forehead and went off to the kitchen.

Richie stared blankly at the TV. He didn’t even know what show was on. He wasn’t paying attention. In the moments his brain didn’t feel like TV static, he was too busy thinking about Georgie, Bill, Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough, his friends. He wondered how everyone else had reacted to the news. Eddie must have had an asthma attack. Beverly, Ben, and Mike H. probably all cried. Stan had called them all, he already knew that. But he couldn’t imagine what Bill’s reaction had been like. He tried not to think too much about that. He tried not to think too much about the funeral, either. He didn’t know what funeral would be like. He had never been to one.

Mike walked into the living room just as the show, whatever it was, switched to commercial. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room for a moment, fiddling with the end of his pajama shirt, the same nervous habit both Richie and their mother had.

“Uh, hi.”

“...hi,” Richie said. He looked at his brother. There was still a bit of mashed potatoes in his hair, dried up by now.

“I, um… Mom said earlier that I could come out of our room when I was ready to apologize. I, uh, wanted to apologize earlier, but Nancy said I should leave you alone for a while.” He shifted on the balls of his feet, not meeting his twin’s eyes. “So… I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have called you freak, I should’ve taken this whole thing more seriously, I should-”

Richie groaned. “Oh, would you stop? It’s fine, I forgive you. Sorry I put potatoes in your hair.”

Mike smiled, just a little bit. He made his way over to couch and sat down next to his brother. Richie put his head on his shoulder.

“I didn’t know what would happen,” Mike said quietly.

“Me neither. I don’t think anyone did. I don’t think you ever can.”

“Oh, um, Lucas says he’s gonna bring you two butterfingers, now. And Dustin’s gonna bring you some mentos and Will’s gonna bring some coke, so you can try that experiment you wanted to try.”

“You weren’t supposed to be using your SuperComm.”

Mike shrugged. “Well, mom was too busy cleaning up your puke.”

Richie chuckled, just a little bit.

Karen walked back into the room, two mugs of hot cocoa in hand. She handed Richie his and didn’t hesitate to give Mike her own.

The three sat in comfortable silence until Richie drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever go to write something and just like, write so much more than you intended?  
Anyway, here's the first one shot in a series I'm starting with Richie and Mike being twins. It's a no Pennywise au, but the Upside Down and all that are still around. I mean that doesn't even matter right now, this is set a year before season 1 anyway, but I thought you guys would like to know. And yes, I am writing this on top of my cousins au, cuz I can.  
I have a lot of ideas for this series and I probably won't write them in chronological order, but they'll all include the date they take place down to the day of the week so you can know when they're set and read them in order if you feel like it.  
Finally, I am very aware that the Losers Club were all about 12 when Georgie died, but I didn't want his death to overlap so much with Will's disappearance so I just put it a year earlier. Maybe you'll find out what caused his death in a future fic since Pennywise isn't around in this! Oh ho~!  
Hope you guys liked this, there should be more soon!  
~Mel


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